Threads 55 Nobility 2

“I think I find the appeal of a more challenging hunt greater,” Ling Qi answered carefully. She kept her eyes on Luo Zhong, but she didn’t miss some of the frowns that her answer brought among the disciples on the other side.

“Then, as my honored guest, I will defer to you,” the young man replied with a faint grin. Ling Qi had to restrain herself from showing her irritation. There was no need to place that kind of responsibility on her! She had only agreed with half of his own party.

Sixiang muttered.

“Hmmm, but how to organize things?” he continued, tapping his chin thoughtfully. Beneath him, his hound let out a rumbling chuff, and he glanced down. “Ah, perhaps you are right, Ta. Alingge, Miss Ling, will you do us the favor of scouting ahead? I will organize the rest.”

She glanced at the other girl, who nodded cheerfully. “It would be my honor, Sir Luo,” Alingge said, clapping her fists together.

“I do not mind at all,” Ling Qi replied, offering a bow.

She and the other girl left the pavilion with only a few more pleasantries. While Ling Qi took to the tree branches, Alingge chose to ride on the back of one of the gathered beasts, a black and silver furred doe that stood a bit over two meters at the shoulder. She suspected the deer was of a kind with the fourth grade beast she had once encountered in the forest.

“Did you have a plan in mind?” Ling Qi asked as the pavilion faded into the greenery behind them. “We will have to be careful not to pick out anything too dangerous, I think. Anything that would threaten one of us or Sir Luo could be very deadly for the rest.” Alingge and Wu Jing were both roughly at her own level of cultivation, but they were the only ones.

Alingge looked up at her when she spoke. The girl rode bareback on her doe, but she did make use of a set of reins. “Do not misunderstand,” she said. “I seek cunning prey, not a great battle. It would be wasteful and destructive to enact such a thing merely for play.”

Ling Qi thought of the ruin that she and Cai Renxiang made of the sparring fields and dipped her head in acknowledgement. “Agreed. Something in the middle of the third realm then?”

The other girl hummed in agreement. “That would be best,” she agreed. For a moment, there was silence between them, but then, Alingge glanced up. “Would you answer me a question?”

“I may,” Ling Qi said noncommittally. “If the answer is something which I can freely speak of.”

“What occured on the peak of the Outer Mountain? What happened to the peak’s guardian?” Alingge asked. “Rumors flow like water, but the truth is unclear.”

Ling Qi blinked as she leaped ahead to the next branch. It shouldn’t have been a surprising question, but it was actually the first time someone aside from her friends had asked her. “I had been learning from the spirit at the peak for the better part of a year,” Ling Qi answered after a moment. “Between teaching me and some other complications in her Way…”

“The ice child,” Alingge murmured as she guided her mount through the tangle of trees and brush.

“Yes,” Ling Qi admitted. “The peak’s guardian wanted her daughter to be able to leave and live,” Ling Qi felt a surge of melancholy as she thought back to those final moments on the peak. She remembered Zeqing’s cracked face and Hanyi’s tears. “Even if it was only for a short time, as her student, I wanted to respect her wishes.”

Sixiang whispered, and Ling Qi felt a brief pressure on her shoulder, as if a hand was resting there

“I admire your integrity,” Alingge said frankly. She did seem distracted though, glancing over Ling Qi’s shoulder. She must be able to sense Sixiang to an extent. “Few would value their connection to a spirit so highly in these days.”

“Thank you for your kind words,” Ling Qi replied automatically. “If you do not mind me asking a question in turn, what is your situation? I had thought the people of the Southern Emerald Seas were… integrated. I apologize if the question is rude, but I’m unsure of your position.”

Alingge let out a wry chuckle, turning her eyes back to the forest ahead. “The Daigiya are viscounts by your measure. We are descended from the clans which joined with Imperial settlers in the early days of the Hui. For our cooperation, we were granted privileges.”

Sixiang thought.

Ling Qi did not voice any doubts and simply nodded in understanding. “Still, I had thought I was doing well in studying the clans of Emerald Seas. That I somehow managed to miss something so large is disturbing.”

“Do not be disturbed,” Alingge said. “Of the four clans, two have taken to Imperial names and ways. My people and the Gi in the west do not seek for attention in the wider world.”

“It’s a little dangerous to isolate yourself, isn’t it?” Ling Qi asked, looking at the girl out of the corner of her eye.

“And so I am here,” the other girl replied. “To learn and ingratiate. However, the heavens are high and the capital far. We do not step beyond our bounds. We are not an important piece in the games of the greater clans. It is the duty of the Luo to see to that.”

Ling Qi wasn’t sure that was a good attitude. In her experience, living quietly and wanting to be left alone were poor protections. However, she wouldn’t be rude enough to disagree. “As you say. So, what are we searching for?”

Alingge seemed happy enough to change the subject. “A predator, I should think. A beast who hunts with ambush and mobility that we might hunt and be hunted in turn.”

“I might suggest finding a potent enough wolf pack, but I am not sure if that would offend our host,” Ling Qi joked.

“Yes, that would be a poor choice,” Alingge laughed. “Perhaps we should seek out mountain cats?”

“That seems like a likely choice,” Ling Qi agreed. She allowed herself to relax slightly. Perhaps this wouldn’t be so bad after all.

As she was the more mobile of the two, it fell to Ling Qi to move back and forth between scouting and reporting to the main party as they moved south, seeking the signs of a sufficiently potent beast. This role unfortunately left her little time to actually socialize with the other disciples, but she was able to observe them as she came and went, making reports on her and Alingge’s progress. The main party remained in a relaxed mood, and it seemed to her that most of them were genuinely enjoying themselves.

With the practice she had gotten over the last few months by attending her liege’s parties and cultivating the Harmony of the Dancing Wind art, she could see the connections that ran through the group. She could decipher who was actually friends and who was simply tolerating another. There was less division than she might have expected.

There were clear cliques. The largest was Wu Jing and several other noble born disciples, a cluster of five brightly dressed young men and women who very much seemed to be trying at being exemplars of Imperial nobility. The other cliques were much smaller. There were a pair of young men with fur cloaks and silver jewelry with the scent of the moon about them, a trio of disciples with modern but less ostentatious clothing, and one or two others who seemed to drift from one group to another as if unsure of where they belonged.

Luo was at the center of it all, of course, but it was difficult to see how he leaned. He seemed amicable with everyone, and the deference they all showed toward him made it impossible to pick out any inclinations. Without spending more time speaking with them, anything more than surface level observations were impossible. She did not have too much time to ponder on the social situation since most of her effort was put into the tracking.

Their efforts did pay off. It was not long before Alingge and Ling Qi found the trail of a beast which met the conditions they had set for themselves, sussing out the edges of its territory by the marks, physical and spiritual, that it left on the world. Ling Qi headed back to report their finding to Luo Zhong.

***

“A mirage lion,” Luo Zhong mused as he considered her words. “The two of you were certainly swift in finding such valuable prey.”

“So Alingge has said,” Ling Qi demurred. The girl had rejected appellations like “Miss” so Ling Qi was left to just use her name. “She believes the one we are tracking to be of the high third grade, equivalent to a cultivator of the threshold stage.”

“Mm, a deadly creature,” Wu Jing noted, standing beside Luo Zhong. The others were arrayed in a loose group around them. “Are we certain we wish to push for such a trophy?” the boy asked dubiously. “It is difficult for those of lower cultivation to see through their manipulations of wind and light, and their claws are deadly to the unguarded.”

“It is an enemy well within our grasp, I think,” Ling Qi replied. “I do not see any weak or unready cultivators around me. Even limiting ourselves to less destructive arts, I do not see any real trouble finding us.”

“We will succeed for certain,” Wu Jing agreed. “If nothing else, Sir Luo might intervene. I simply wonder at the need for taking such risks for a bit of sport.”

Sixiang mused.

“Contrary as always, my friend,” Luo Zhong chuckled. “Your words have merit. A beast of the threshold stage is quite the terror for many here. However, it is unseemly to be too cautious,” he chided. “I did make the decision to hunt something more difficult this afternoon.”

“As you say,” Wu Jing accepted, dipping a short